Day 53 | America Cannot Manage the World

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Ana Kasparian, Daniel Bessner, Jacobin Magazine's Weekends, Nando Silva

LUMPENPROLETARIAT—[Saturday, 13 MAR 2021] Today is Day 53 of Mr. Biden’s first one hundred days in office. This week, Mr. Biden delivered his first major address to the American people. But to us, in our working class neck of the woods, Mr. Biden appears to be nothing more than a sock puppet for capital. We recall BBC documentarian Adam Curtis‘s latest series, I Can’t Get You Out of My Head, which we’ve taken note of at Lumpenproletariat. We draw your attention to the episode, “Money Changes Everything,” which showed how technocrats have supplanted democratic process in Europe.

We also consider theAnalysis-news and their recent report, “Global Coup De’tat: Mapping the Corporate Takeover of Global Governance, ” which we discussed on The Robruken Podcast recently. And, since multistake holder interests, which are more private than public, have made the key decisions to the world’s COVID-19 response, particularly the decision to use the PCR test as a diagnostic test to test for COVID-19, when scientists are saying that the inventor of the PCR test never intended it to be used as a diagnostic test, and yet it was used against apparently valid scientific objections, as well as the fact that the Trump and Biden administrations have, basically, moved in neoliberal lockstep, albeit at different paces, all of this shows the increasing irrelevance of elected officials, such as Mr. Biden, and their ability to enact the will of the people, even if they wanted to, which clearly they do not.

At the same time, as the U.S. Executive is hamstrung to do anything about the neoliberal ‘Global Coup De’tat’, the position of the U.S. Executive has been endowed with kingly powers insofar as the Executive may be used as a tool for despotic interests, such as those of the military-industrial complex. This is why our position is that we must abolish the Executive branch as well as the Senate in order to move toward a more parliamentary system. Clearly, our system of checks and balances has proven to be a complete failure, as many legal and political experts are warning the USA is sliding toward authoritarianism or proto-fascism. Mr. Trump’s ongoing coup attempt is a salient example of the illegitimacy of the Executive position. We also call for ranked-choice voting and proportional representation in Congress, as democracy-preserving mechanisms.

Daniel Bessner spoke to some of these concerns this morning on Jacobin Magazine’s Weekends with Ana Kasparian and Nando Vila. Please check it out, when you get a chance.

Solidarity.

Another salient observation:

“Lula is back!” proclaimed Nando Silva (Jacobin Magazine’s Weekends) this morning. It is wonderful news for those of us on the left of the political spectrum, that Lula has been cleared of corruption charges. Of course, if for no other reason, given the importance of Brazil’s rainforest to the wellbeing of the global climate, as Nando noted, everything that happens in Brazil matters to all of us.
Abby Martin: “Biden, as president now, he has released a statement about the entire continent of Africa…, “A Guide to U.S. Empire in Africa: Neocolonial Order & AFRICOM” by Empire Files, 13 MAR 2021, (c. 31:06)
On Syria, Biden is back to business as usual, circa Obama admin foreign policy. Daniel Bessner: “It’s a good question. And I think it’s indicative of the larger thrust of Biden’s foreign policy, which is essentially a return to the status quo of the Obama administration.” Quoted in “Biden’s American Empire w/Daniel Bessner, Lula Livre, & Silicon Valley Free Speech | Weekends” by Jacobin, 13 MAR 2021. (c. 37:12)

@LumpenProles, updated at 18:11 PST, March 13, 2021.

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NOTES FROM A WORKING CLASS LEFT PERSPECTIVE

Saturday, March 13, 2021

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“Is This Class Reductionism?” by Jacobin, 12 MAR 2021.

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10:00 PST,

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“Biden’s American Empire w/Daniel Bessner, Lula Livre, & Silicon Valley Free Speech | Weekends” by Jacobin, 13 MAR 2021.

(c. 0:00) Cuomo impeachment?
(c. – 1:51:40) On the Verso Book Club
(c. 08:31) Lula Livre vs Bolsonaro
(c. 36:09) American Empire, Iran, and China
(c. 1:22:06) Superchats: Left Internationalism, Sellouts, and BLM

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11:00 PST, Guest just offered a reason for why he thinks Bitcoin will fail to supplant the U.S. dollar as the international reserve currency. 11:02 PST, On Mr. Obama’s Asia-Pacific Pivot, which we leftist Pacifica Radio listeners heard about from Michel Chossudovsky on Bonnie Faulkner’s show, which has been pushed out of KPFA, Guns and Butter. Had the powers that be marginalized Guns and Butter sooner, your author may have never heard of MMT, the job guarantee policy proposal, or the heterodox economics department at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. This reality speaks to issue, which we want to shed light upon around free speech radio KPFA and the Pacifica Radio Network. As noted before, when I returned to KPFA with a degree in economics from UMKC and knowledge of MMT and the Job Guarantee program, which we know Dr. King would’ve championed, I only encountered stone-walling when I emailed and implored the likes of Mitch Jeserich and others to please inform their audiences about the job guarantee program being advocated by economists, such as Dr. Stephanie Kelton (The Deficit Myth), Dr. L. Randall Wray (Understanding Modern Money), Dr. Mathew Forstater (The Job Guarantee), et al. To this day, as far as we know, the powers that be at KPFA have obstructed the sharing of this information. 11:25 PST, On the question of strategy in regard to critiquing our comrades in positions of power, e.g., Bernie Sanders. And, for us in the Pacifica Radio family, how do we critique liberal broadcasters, who seem to betray the left daily, without shooting ourselves in the foot? | 11:36 PST, Nando: ‘The Communist Internationals failed to achieve meaningful leftist Internationalism.’ | 11:50 PST, ‘I would do a federal jobs guarantee, instead of a second homestead act to develop/repurpose the Plains for the benefit of the decimated working class.’ | 11:40 PST, On the importance of linking labor to any and all struggles for socioeconomic justice. | 11:58 PST, Ana’s closing remarks; no show next Saturday. Nando: ‘A bit of spring break next week; “but we’ll be back better than ever.” Wow, dear readers, KPFA has always felt like home since the late 1980s. Now, Jacobin is feeling quite communal. Solidarity.

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13:00 PST,

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